It’s still a brilliantly evocative, atmospheric space, deftly capturing the spirit of the city it’s based on. The important thing is that, in an artistic sense, Liberty City hasn’t aged at all. But 5 is the result of an extra decade of advances in videogame technology, so that’s to be expected. The streets of LC feel a little sparse and lifeless, and there isn’t much in the way of unique NPC behaviour. Los Santos and Blaine County have LC easily beat when it comes to detail and fidelity, of course. The low roar of traffic, chirping mobile phones, and police sirens wailing in the distance make for a wonderfully immersive city soundscape. Sure, it's hard to appreciate the ambience when you're cruising around listening to Edge of Seventeen by Stevie Nicks or blasting fools with a micro SMG, but it's worth taking a moment to just stop and listen. Liberty City sounds amazing too, and I don't think Rockstar North's audio designers get enough credit for that. You can thank the crazy success of GTA Online for that.
It’s a shame we didn’t see Rockstar develop something similar for 5, because Los Santos and the surrounding country are crying out for more stories to be told there. And by letting you dip into these sharply different subcultures-the club scene in Gay Tony, motorcycle gangs in Lost and Damned-the city feels all the richer for it.
It’s amazing how these expansions make the setting feel brand new, even if you’ve already sunk 50 hours into Niko’s story. This is a sensation I get when I visit New York: a kind of reverse vertigo as my brain tries to process how far those buildings stretch.Ī shopfront on Galveston Avenue in AlgonquinĮpisodes From Liberty City is a standalone spin-off, featuring expansions The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, which gives you two very different perspectives on the city. It’s the way the camera’s field of view widens when you swing it up, making those skyscrapers look impossibly tall. The most striking thing is how much bigger it seems, despite being a third of the size. So I decided to pay it a visit.Īfter spending 100+ hours surrounded by the sandy beaches, hillside mansions, and quiet mountains of Los Santos and Blaine County, the grey, claustrophobic urban sprawl of Liberty City feels wildly different. It’s arguably one of the most impressive imaginary cities ever built, but I wondered how it would stand up to scrutiny a decade later, through cruel, modern eyes. With 4, however, Rockstar not only made a city that looked like New York, but one that captured its distinctive atmosphere and culture. The latter is a memorable setting in its own right, but never really felt like the city it was supposed to be an analogue of.
Liberty City had appeared twice before in the main GTA series, in top-down form in the original and in primitive 3D in Grand Theft Auto 3.
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